1 Corinthians 1:18-25
Lent 3 - Year B
Well, we have heard the wisdom of the wise - 48 hours and then war.
The most foolish and weak thing of G*D is claimed to be better than this.
So how do we respond to this choice?
Quickly or not, the wisdom of the wise will be destroyed and thwarted. The question left is how many will be slaughtered in that process.
It is not too early to design a service of mourning that can be used as regularly as an order for morning, midday or evening prayer. Preemptive mourning for a preemptive war - how fitting.
Again comes the call to the prophetic wing of the church to sit in sackcloth and ashes as a sign of the weakness of G*D in our day. We pray this action to be a sign of salvation.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2003/march2003.html
The cross as foolishness - we might even speak of it as counter-intuitive. On the way to destruction, as is everything, there is a very strong positive value in extending the pre-destruction experience.
A very clear and immanent danger of the cross is the way in which it cuts short this desired experience.
For those with a bi-directional, semi-permeable barrier at the point of destruction, the cross is where the action is as one moves from this side. (We probably need some clearer images of where the point is when the action moves in the other direction.)
The issue of sacrificial living can make sense in light of a cross crossing across the cross-purposes of life. Sort of makes one cross-eyed, so cross your finger in the presence of fear and trembling. Proceed apace.
In the midst of such diversionary language, a more serious question rests with what would constitute a cross for you or for Jesus in the midst of the war on Iraq? Or are we only into bombing others to the point of destruction? Is this latter way the equivalent of our calling down the 12 legions of angels Jesus refused to call upon when he was arrested (Mt. 26.53)?
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2003/march2003.html
The message about the cross is foolishness.
The message about the 10-to-613 commandments is foolishness.
The message about loving G*D, self, neighbor, enemy is foolishness.
The message about negotiating from strength is foolishness.
The message about preemptive violence is foolishness
The message about tax relief for the rich is foolishness.
Foolishness, like beauty, seems to be in the eye of the beholder.
So, what foolishness are you intentionally participating in these days and what foolishness are you illuminating as long-term stupidity.
By our foolishnesses are we known.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2006/march2006.html
There is a temptation here to see our proclamation of "Christ crucified" as trumping all other proclamations, including the proclamation of creation, "It is good", and the proclamation of resurrection, "Peace be with you". There is a temptation here to view our finally getting the irony of G*D's weakest being G*D's strength as the fundamental piece of authority to make us extra wise and able to triumph over all other stages of faith.
An important corrective comes four verses later (29), "so that no one might boast in the presence of God" or preempt G*D's freedom and lord it over one's neighbors.
Look back on church history and count the ways in which pride in the cross has led to war and torture. G*D's foolishness in using this spiritual jujitsu of weakness against strength is very tricky for us to use and usually shows our foolishness as foolishness, not wisdom. Saints are able to carry this off, but we never trust them to actually lead us in this wisdom until they are safely dead.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2006/march2006.html
You shall not make a marketplace of your life, this community, this creation, this religious perspective, this glorious commonwealth.
Those wonderful markers strewn around the country in 1956 to commemorate 10 arenas of life where things can go awry in were to help market a movie. Now they become traditions that must be held onto at all costs. Law has become law has become law, dividing the very communities once held together by what stood behind such law.
Somehow the glory of life keeps getting pared down enough to pass a legislature. The meaning of day and night cannot be put into words, and yet we latch onto one set of temporal propositions or another. Through proliferating law is glory's silence broken and we finally settle for the law and not the glory.
We even market our religion as though it were the only possible revelation of an expansive love that pushes past every one of our sacred moments - even that of resurrection. No matter how broad even we progressive religionists envision life, we are too pale for the colorful dance that will raise all enemies to friends.
Indeed, zeal for someone else's vision consumes us. Evidence America's preemptive entry into Iraq. For whatever good may have once been possible, we have devolved. Zeal, all by itself, becomes marketed as righteousness. Even action against marketing, becomes marketing. What a dizzying, disorienting flurry.
- - -
a medium is a message
it lops off the ends
one size fits all
average is good enougha medium whispers
stories behind stories
believable and not
what you see is not alla medium well
is recommended
to burn out illness
and blood guilta medium nurtures
biologic experiments
testing theories
confirming evidencea medium colors
pale lives
with pigments
life experienceda medium law
keeps us from
in medias res
and attendant glorya medium life
bounded by rules
binding with same
unconscious errors
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_03_01_archive.html
If we only deal with the prescribed verses we end up with propositional statements about G*D and Christ, devoid of connection with us – other than how good they look in comparison to us. OK, OK, G*D's awesome and Jesus is too.
A much greater mystery is opened in verses 26-31 – not just some perfected group who are "The Called", but such frail flowers as you and me are also awesome. Remember we are going to be able to boast that, as part of the "not", we have a part in "reducing to not" things that are. This koan is worth the pondering.
This pericope uses highly loaded language. G*D again is born in humble dwellings – in your life and mine. That which was lost is found, that which is but straw draws gold to it. And, boast away, something wonderful occurs in this partnership – this embodiment of G*D and divinization of us.
Go ahead, boast away.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2009_03_01_archive.html
Is there no foolish question? How about, Who do people say I am? About the only possible response is another question - Who do you say you are?
When it comes to how we live together, is it foolish or not to need an external force for living morally with one another? What is the effective power of a commandment? Or is it simply a matter of being able to raise a question about choices about to be made?
Are we finally left with the foolishness of silence? One hand clapping, and the like, where foolishness is wisdom and weakness, strength?
In all of these there is the mystery of an alternative choice beyond the limits of our imagination and the traditions which have come down to us. Blessings upon your alternatives, seen and unseen.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2012/03/1-corinthians-118-25.html